Monday, December 31, 2012

MICRO MACHINES' MONSTER TRUCKS

Although the first Bigfeet were
released as early as 1988, it took a few years until this Tuff Trax collection
(together with 4 more) was released.

In 1988, between the “normal” collections,
there was the #20: “Super 4x4 Collection”. This comprised 4 cars or vans with
big black wheels; this collection in particular was surely one of the most
interesting for children, and one of the most sold.

Proof of that is that in 1989, the “Super 4x4”
were separated from the normal “Ultrafast” collections, and there were 4 “Super
4x4’s” collections made. The first of them was the same that one year earlier
was sold under the Ultrafast #20 name, just the cars were coloured differently.
But those were not the only “Monster Trucks” among all new releases; a second
series, named “Turbo Wheels” comprised 6 collections of 4 cars each with
overdimensioned wheels. The difference was, that these wheels were “slick”,
while the wheels of the super 4x4’s were “off road”.

These two collections were re-released with new
colours in 1990, but discontinued in 1991, when the Tuff Trax were first
released. The new series had soft plastic wheels, which give better grip and were
also funnier to drive. There were 8 collections made in 1991 and a few more in
1992. All of them are vans or small trucks and tractors.

In 1991, there were other Bigfoot series, like
the “4x4 Crankers”, also with soft plastic wheels and wind-up mechanism, the “4x4
Crushers” that had an electric motor, operated by a small battery, or the “Stunt
Maniacs”, which included a powerful motor (pull-back, I think) that pushed the
car to make very impressive tricks and acrobatics.

In 1992 there were 3 Tuff Trax collections
released, together with two new series “Monster Tredz” and “Spring and Steer”(Crankers,
Crushers and Stunt Maniacs were discontinued in 1991).

Back to the Tuff Trax collections, they were
reproductions of real cars that could be seen at the “Tuff Trax” TV show by TNT
Motorsports. This first collection, for example, included:

- Grave Digger

- Jersey
Outlaw

- Clydesdale II

Here's the opening theme of the TV show. Note that the Grave Digger appears at the beginning of the video, and the Clydesdale II by the 0.21 seconds. Cool!

Friday, December 28, 2012

It’s been a long time since I wanted to write
this article, but normally, I take the pictures first, and then I write the
text. I wanted to take good pictures, so it all delayed a little bit. This article deals with two figures of the 4th
MOTU wave: Dragon Blaster Skeletor and Roboto, for me, the best two figures
released that year. I made this diorama in the forest, hope you like the pictures!

The first one is the third incarnation of
Skeletor, which came with the dragon backpack. This figure is relatively
difficult to find complete, because it came with a chain and two small green
plastic parts. The dragon is chained to the backpack and fixed to Skeletor’s
wrist. The other extreme of the chain is secured with a lock (very often
missing). This whole backpack is what’s new in this figure, because the figure
is identical to the original, 1982 figure. It also came with the classic purple
sword, as the previous two versions of the character.

The backpack is quite big, because it is a
water tank. The head of the dragon can be removed to fill that tank, and then,
it “spits” the water by pressing the head down. This mechanism was also used in
Kobra Khan one wave earlier.

The second figure is a robot with a transparent
plastic chest that reveals the inner mechanism; that’s a few catherine wheels,
cranks and the heart that beats up and down. This figure share a bit of the
concept behind Trap-Jaw, as it also moves the jaws up and down, and has 3
interchangeable hand parts. These three parts: claw, axe and gun, are the only
accessories that came with the figure.

These figure was considered by many to be a
variant named “pink boots Roboto”, but it was found that the pink colour was
really some kind of oxidation of the metallic silver paint. I took all the
pictures with the pink boots, but I later cleaned them with a bit of alcohol
and cotton. As you can see in the picture, the “pink” goes revealing the silver
paint. It’s not that easy, but with a bit of patience, the figure looks as if
it was just taken of the package. It seems that only some figures have this
problem, I own a second Roboto since I was a kid, and it always kept its silver
boots.

Tuesday, December 25, 2012

Apparently, these models are based in one of
the most reused casts ever in the history of die-cast models. Best Box already
had this cast and produced several T models. After the rename of the company as
Efsi, this model kept being produced and sold.

Note that all three models are almost
identical, the only differences are in the colours of the body and plastic parts,
and, most notably, in the rear section of the car. There are around 15
different “types” of Ford T, these are just three examples.

The most common model, however, is not among
these three, and is the “ambulance” model, presenting a big box behind the
cockpit. Painted in different colours, this model has been used as a
promotional article with different decals on it. If not painted white it doesn’t
look like an ambulance, but as a delivery van. The Tanker was also used for promotional purposes, for example with "Shell" decals.

Among the great details that you have to check
in the pictures are the spoke wheels in orange simulating the colour of wood,
the beautiful front in metal with the Ford logo on it, and of course the small
plastic interior with seat and steering wheel. None of these model had
windshields, and if you observe the picture of the cars from below, you’ll see
that most parts are hollow in order to minimize manufacturing costs.

The wheels have one great drawback: they are
made of plastic and, therefore, they’re not very tough. In many models these
are bent, half-broken or directly missing.

This was for the company a very profitable
model, and it was produced from the Best Box times to the very last years of
Efsi, that’s (approximately) between 1966 and 1971 as Best Box and between 1971
and 1988 as Efsi Holland.

Numbering and additional information for this article was taken
from “tales of toy cars” by Doug Breithaupt. In the following link you’ll find
more pictures of Efsi’s Ford T: http://www.breithaupts.com/totc348.htm

The story behind the Ford T is well known: it
was the first model mass produced in the history of automobile, and also the
best-selling car until 1972, with more than 4 million units sold.

Pilen also made these toys, probably after buying a license from Efsi to produce them. You can see an image taken from a promotional catalogue from 1980. Apparently Pilen also produce the trucks and trailer from the dutch company that same year. The following pictures are taken from pilen.jimdo.com:

Saturday, December 22, 2012

Our new magazine about action figures is now
available for download! As every year, we have our Christmas issue ready, with
all the classic sections (news, interview, places to visit and books) and a
bunch of new articles.

This time, we have tried to upgrade the
magazine by dealing with more specific topics, and I think the results are
great. In this 7th issue, you’ll find articles about Big Jim,
Sticker Albums, the ulta-rare vintage Bobba Fett, Playmobil Far West series and
much more.

My contribution this time deals with female
action figures and action figures representing other races than Caucasian. There are only few of them made, so I make an overview from the 60s to today and try to bring as many
interesting facts and curiosities as possible you might not know yet !

Thursday, December 20, 2012

Another vehicle for the Real Ghostbusters, after
the Ecto-1 I presented a long time ago. This vehicle was part of the second
series, and therefore it was released one year later than the car.

I received it as a gift some Christmas, and I
have it boxed. The box is not depicted, because I have it somewhere else, but
as soon as I can take pictures of it, I’ll update the article.

The vehicle itself is a three-wheeled motorbike
that turns into a helicopter with wings. As a concept is quite strange, but as
a toy is great. It doesn’t appear in any of the movies, but it does in the tv
series and the comics, for example, in the Bastei Comics edited in Germany “Die
echten Ghostbusters”. I don’t know which company released these comics in
English.

Note that in this drawing, the Ecto-2 has place
for two people, while the toy can only carry 1 figure.

The helicopter can be hold like a pistol and it
does even have a trigger to move the blades. Together with the blades, there’s
a hook hanging from a rope that moves up. A similar mechanism was available in
the Ecto-1.

The red clip by the blades can "lock" the trigger

Also interesting is that every vehicle in the
Real Ghostbusters collection came with one ghost except this one. It came,
however, with an accessory bomb that attaches to the lower part of the
helicopter under the cabin. The bomb has one “spike” that goes inside the
cabin.

Ecto-2 bomb

Ecto-2's cockpit (detail)

Like other vehicles in this toy line, the Ecto-2 was made in Mexico

If you're looking for this vehicle, pay attention to the following points:

the bomb is ofter missing

the security belt is sometimes broken

the hook mechanism does not always work correctly

the blades (red part) are not broken (if broken they are very difficult to repair)

stickers are present and in good shape

In this entry we used Fright Features’ Peter
Venkman, who is still looking for his hook-weapon. As soon as I find it, I’ll
show an entry with all 5 figures. I already presented the other 4 in entries #21 and #179.

Something I wanted to comment about this line
is that most figures and vehicles are very easy to find at low prices, and
there’s only a handful of “rarities”. The rarest toys are the last wave
unproduced figures and playsets. There are a few of them made, but I consider
them prototypes, and I will never get one of them. Another very rare toy in
this line are the “finger pop fiends” a group of three ghosts that were sold
together and that are made of a soft, flexible plastic. You could deform them,
but they would always return to their cylindrical form. These are the rarest
item in this series that is no prototype. From the rest of the toys, only the
Ecto-1 and the first 4 Ghostbusters figures (with backpacks, guns and ghosts)
have a certain value, the rest of the collection is really cheap. Great toys for very little money!

Security belt, one of the weak points of the Ecto-2

UPDATE: I have recovered the box of the toy, that I keep since 1992 or so. It is a bit worn, but it still displays nicely.

French front

French side

Dutch front

Dutch side

Box flap with Loustau & Sachnovsky (importer) information. It includes a translation of the instructions in Spanish.

Monday, December 17, 2012

I recently found three die-cast vehicles in a
flea market. They are a nice sample of what Playart was doing in the early 80s.

The company was settled in Hong-Kong from the
late 60s to the early 80s, and as many Hongkongese companies at the time,
produced cheap(er) toys for the European, American and Japanese markets.
Sometimes it was sold under its own “playart” brand, some other times under
other names. Sometimes they were exclusively packaged for important department
stores like Woolworth’s, Sears or Charles Merzbach as "in-brand". This way they
could compete with more expensive toys like Matchbox or HotWheels. The first
“Playart – Fast Wheels” packages are pretty much a rip-off of HotWheels
packages from the early 70s. A more detailed list of the packages types can be
found in Gary’sCars.

They made toy cars in several scales, being the
most common 1:64. In this scale (by far the best selling scale),
Playart made around 250 references, each reference belonged to one car model,
but many colour variations are many within each model. In some models there are also different tampographies. Additionally, there are
models with a large lifespan that might have different types of wheels,
depending on when these were made. Earlier types of wheel (2 different) are two
pieced with a chromed hubcap, somehow similar to Schucco or Mira. Later models
present the type of wheels you’re seeing in these models, with exception to
some models that had “Tomica”-wheels and models with two concentric circles.

From these 250 references, many of them are
copies of models by HotWheels, Corgi, Matchbox, Tomica and maybe more brands. You
probably have noticed that the Mercury car in these pictures is a copy from the
one made by Matchbox (Mercury Police Car, nr. 55D from 1971). The ambulance is
similar to models made by Siku,although it has big differences, and the truck
is original by Playart and is available in many different casts, and different
types of trucks.

I own a few more models by Playart that I’d like
to show some other time, some of them are interesting because are models that
were not made by many other brands in 1:64 scale, making rare collectibles. What
many experts think about Playart, is that, even though they made cheap cars
copying from other brands, the selection of the models tells us, that the
people in charge of the production were real car lovers, and had very good
taste.